How would you feel about Orthodox factions being able to go into communion with Rome?

[Maklodes]

This is sort of a "Medieval 2.5" type idea more than something that I think could actually be implemented with modding, but how would you feel about Orthodox factions being able to go into communion with Rome?

The way I say it, Orthodoxy is mechanically weaker than Islam, because Islam gets benefits like jihads without having to worry about the pope. Orthodoxy's only advantage over Islam right now, I think, is princesses, which is a pretty weak advantage.

Anyway, my thought is: what if Orthodox factions could go into communion with Rome? I mentioned this idea before, and it didn't seem very popular, but it was a long time ago in another thread and there were only about two responses (one of which was just "no...."), so I thought I'd see what people think.

My idea:

• Orthodox factions start out effectively "excommunicated."
• However, while Catholic factions get unrest and their pious generals lose loyalty for being excommunicated, Orthodox factions don't.
• If you have a sufficiently high-piety (4+ piety) priest, you can request communion with the Catholics. Success depends on diplomatic relations with Papal states.
• If you do acquire communion with Rome, you effectively suffer the same unrest penalties that Catholics do for being excommunicated: public order penalties, pious generals losing loyalty, etc. Orthodox folk dislike being in communion with Rome similarly to how Catholics dislike being excommunicated.
• If you are in communion with Rome, you are, other than pissing off your Orthodox subjects, considered Catholic: the Pope will try to stop wars between you and other Catholics upon pain of excommunication. You can request and join crusades. Your people can be burnt by inquisitors. (If you're Byzantine, and you're fighting a two-front war against the Turks and Venetians, it could be handy to effectively make the Venetians chill a while so you can focus on the Turks.)
• If you are in communion with Rome, you can be excommunicated the normal way (you piss the pope off), or by having a piety 4+ priest annul the communion. Annulling the communion angers the Pope more than joining communion pleases him, so joining and leaving communion frequently angers the church compared to maintaining a more consistent policy, eventually making it impossible to rejoin unless you bribe the pope a lot.

Thoughts? Improvements? Critiques?

[Sitalkes]

Sounds fair enough to me. The orthodox church agreed to combine with the catholic church in return for help against the Turks, but the help was late arriving and Constantinople was taken before anything could be changed permanently.

[Kaiser Nonsense]

Seems like a great idea. You have my support.

[Vlad Dracul]

In reality, there is such a thing, called the greek-catholic church and present in my native Transylvania since the end of the XVIIth century.
Maybe you should try to read more about that and implement it in the game under that name.

[Aeratus]

I don't think this idea will be popular with people who actually play the Orthodox factions.

If you ever read the SS forum, everyone who plays as Byzantium (which is basically 35-40% of all SS players, it seems) prefer to utterly crush the Catholics to recreate the Roman Empire. Having another feature where you can "play nice" with the pope is totally contrary to this goal.

[poisoned goat]

On the contrary, there's plenty of benefits to playing as orthodox factions:

1: No pope.
2: Orthodox religious buildings have double the religious conversion bonus compared to catholic churches.
3: You're not the target of crusades/jihads unless you own Constantinople.

[Maklodes]

Sounds fair enough to me. The orthodox church agreed to combine with the catholic church in return for help against the Turks, but the help was late arriving and Constantinople was taken before anything could be changed permanently.

The Council of Florence didn't do much to change Constantinople's fate, but arguably the Second Council of Lyon delayed Charles of Anjou's plans for an anti-Byzantine crusade long enough for Michael VIII and other anti-Angevin conspirators to find a way of derailing Charles' plans more permanently. That might have added almost another two centuries to the existence of the Byzantine Empire.

I don't think this idea will be popular with people who actually play the Orthodox factions.

If you ever read the SS forum, everyone who plays as Byzantium (which is basically 35-40% of all SS players, it seems) prefer to utterly crush the Catholics to recreate the Roman Empire. Having another feature where you can "play nice" with the pope is totally contrary to this goal.

True, although if this option were available, you could still do that. Orthodox factions are still better for ignoring the pope and blitzing everyone than Catholics, since out-of-communion Orthodox factions would have better public order than excommunicated Catholics.

On the contrary, there's plenty of benefits to playing as orthodox factions:

1: No pope.
2: Orthodox religious buildings have double the religious conversion bonus compared to catholic churches.
3: You're not the target of crusades/jihads unless you own Constantinople.

In my original post, my comparison was with Islam.

For 1: Muslims also don't have a pope.
For 2: Masjids/Jamas also provide double conversion bonus (although both Masjids and Orthodox churches convert more effectively, only Catholic cathedrals give a public health bonus and endear you to the papacy).
For 3: Muslims are immune to jihads (unlike Orthodox factions), although they are at risk for crusades.

[Vissewalde rex de Gerzika]

I like the idea, but it should be hard to obtain the communion and annul it too. A 4 piety priest sounds too easy.

[Maklodes]

I like the idea, but it should be hard to obtain the communion and annul it too. A 4 piety priest sounds too easy.

I think that in addition to a 4+ piety priest, it should also require good papal states relations. Maybe "very good" relations or better might be required. Although maybe if you request it and your relations are good but not good enough, they give you a mission (assassinate a specified excommunicated Catholic king, conquer a specified Muslim city, or something) before you can apply again

Although I'm not sure how historically plausible it would be for Russia or Novgorod to try to get into communion with Rome.